Opinion: Mobile content for foodies – an excellent choice, sir

Hot on the heels of its sponsorship of a west-end musical, UK mobile operator Orange is offering it’s users content related to popular TV chef Nigel Slater‘s new recipe book, entitled “Eating for England”. Meanwhile, the 3J Wine Carnet enables wine buffs to catalogue their favourite tipples as they drink them. Foodies are generally pretty passionate people and will therefore make a good target audience that are likely to value the opportunity to indulge their interest in a novel way.

Throughout October, Orange customers will be able to access exclusive Nigel Slater content via the operator’s Orange World portal. It’s a wide-ranging offer, including book extracts, recipes, wallpapers, mobcasts and an interview with the author. There’s also a link to the book’s Amazon page that should stimulate a reasonable number of user’s to make a purchase. An additional, exclusive discount could have put the cherry on what is otherwise a pretty tasty looking content ‘cake’.

Meanwhile, 3J Digital have released the 3J Wine Carnet, which enables users to document their favorite wines, including information on the price, the year, and any additional notes on its finer qualities or lack thereof. What we like about this idea particularly is its locational/situational aspect. For example, it enables you to jot down the details of a wine you might be drinking at a dinner party that you have never drunk before and the name of which you are unlikely to remember the next morning. Or it could provide a useful reminder of what to buy next time you find yourself lacking inspiration in your local wine shop/supermarket. And at £5.49 it’s about the same price as a half-drinkable Cabernet Sauvignon.

This is all pretty tightly targeted content, so the appeal may be limited relative to the mass market. But in the mobile environment, we reckon relevance and personalization are important enough to make these efforts, aimed at a sector noted for its enthusiasm, worthwhile.